1. Field
This disclosure generally relates to the field of language interpretation. More particularly, the disclosure relates to computer implemented language interpretation platforms that provide language interpretation services.
2. General Background
Current computer implemented language interpretation platforms, which shall be referred to as language interpretation platforms, typically provide access to a variety of language interpreters that can provide language interpretation services through various forms of communication, e.g., voice, video, text, etc. A customer, e.g., a subscriber, of the language interpretation platform typically utilizes the language interpretation platform to obtain language interpretation for its users. For example, an emergency response entity may be a subscriber to the language interpretation platform. A user of the emergency response service provided by the emergency response entity may primarily speak a language other than English. Such a user is referred to as a Limited English Proficiency user (“LEP”). After the LEP calls the emergency response entity, the emergency response entity may connect to the language interpretation platform to obtain language interpretation services so that the emergency response personnel can effectively communicate with the LEP to provide emergency response services.
The language interpretation platform provides a language interpretation service by selecting an interpreter from a set of interpreters that have scheduled availability and meet the requirements of the subscriber and the LEP, e.g., the interpreter speaks English to converse with the subscriber's employee and Spanish to converse with the LEP. The language interpretation platform may have a certain number of scheduled available interpreters at a given moment that can perform language interpretation for English and a first LEP language and another number of scheduled available interpreters at that moment that can perform language interpretation for English and a second LEP language. As an example, at a particular time of a given day, the language interpretation platform may determine that one hundred interpreters are scheduled for work and are available to perform language interpretation for English and Spanish whereas only eighty interpreters are scheduled for work and are available to perform language interpretation for English and French.
Further, the language interpretation platform may determine that a language interpreter for a requested language may not be readily available. For example, the language interpretation service provider that provides language interpretation services through the language interpretation platform may not have a scheduled language interpreter for a less commonly spoken language that is available at a particular moment. As another example, the language interpretation service provider may have a significant number of language interpreters for a commonly spoken language, e.g., Spanish, that are scheduled for work at a particular moment, but that are all unavailable as a result of being busy providing language interpretation services for other subscribers.
Given such a request by an LEP, i.e., a request for language interpretation services that would require a language interpreter that is not readily available at a time requested, current language interpretation platforms typically contact a human escalation agent (“EA”) through a human customer agent (“CA”). An available CA manually places a telephone call to an available human EA to inform the human EA that an LEP is requesting language interpretation for a particular language and that a language interpreter for that language is not readily available. The human EA then manually places telephone calls to various interpreters, which are not shown by the language interpretation platform to be currently available, to find out if an interpreter speaking that language can be immediately available for interpretation for the LEP during a language interpretation session via voice, video, text, etc. Even if the human EA is able to find such an interpreter, who was not scheduled for language interpretation services at that given moment, to be immediately available, the LEP would typically have to wait for an extended period of time, e.g., at least a few minutes, for the human CA to contact an available human EA and for the available human EA to place manual telephone calls to find the available language interpreter. Such an extended time period may be quite problematic in situations such as an emergency requiring emergency response assistance or other situations where an LEP needs to urgently communicate through a language interpreter.
With such little time to manually place telephone calls to find a language interpreter that is not scheduled to work at that moment, which can then be immediately available, the human EA often has to try to schedule a telephone call with the language interpreter for the LEP at a later time at which the language interpreter that was not scheduled to work can be available. The LEP may simply not be able to wait for a telephone call that is scheduled with a language interpreter for a later time.
Therefore, current language interpretation platforms utilize a cumbersome and inefficient human EA process. That process often limits the ability of current language interpretation platforms to provide effective language interpretation in time sensitive situations where immediate language interpretation is crucial for an LEP.